The Day I Went Missing : A True Story

Rating:
Summary: Very bizarre
Review: A story worth reading about but it takes the author a very long time to even get into the whole deception part of her therapy. She lingers too long, wading through the days leading up to finding out what was really going on.

Rating:
Summary: Flawed but Fascinating
Review: i agree with both the high praise comments and the hated-it comments. she spends a bit too much time detailing her resume and inserting bits from her comedy act. it really detracts from the narrative in the beginning. even the asides about her family history got to be grating as the book went on, because the real fascinating stuff is with the "Dr. David Cohen".

but i ultimately found the book fascinating and hard to put down when it really got up and going. she holds off on the unveiling of the story till pretty late in the book and for a while i kept glancing at the jacket description of the book to figure out if something bad really WAS going to happen with this therapist.

unfortunately, the ending leaves you with too many questions. it seems strange that there wasn't more of an investigation into this guy... this was released a few years ago -- i need an update.

Rating:
Summary: A Harrowing Memoir
Review: I couldn't put _The Day I Went Missing_ down. It helped me more deeply understand my wife's harrowing experiences of misplaced trust that she wrote about in _Bitter Persimmons_. It helped me look at my own need and vulnerability. I think that the angry negativity expressed by some readers of Miller's book (which my wife has also been a target of) indicates how scared our society is of deep loneliness that can't be simply given the label of depression and put in a box.

Rating:
Summary: Quick read but not entirely satisfying
Review: I found this book to be very dark ~ not at all what I expected with it being a true story. It amazes me that some people can let themselves be manipulated by people to the point of giving someone THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of dollars with nothing in return. You want to track Jennifer down, shake her (not too hard) and tell her to "WAKE UP AND OPEN YOUR EYES TO WHAT IS GOING ON!!".

Rating:
Summary: Amazing True Story
Review: I just finished this book and must say that I couldn't put it down. Anyone who jumps to criticize Ms. Miller for falling for Dr. Cohen's con game didn't read the book very carefully. The author had clearly spent her life devoid of love and human connection. She was quite honest about her upbringing and I thought made it very clear that despite her parents' serious shortcomings, she forgave them and understood that they did the best they could. She merely offered this family history and the anecdotes to highlight the reasons this man was able to manipulate her. He offered unconditional, nurturing love, something she'd never experienced before. Many people justify horrible abuse, lying, cheating and stay in horrible relationships because they are weak and afraid of being alone. I don't applaud her weakness, I simply understand the reason for it. Her story was stranger than fiction, her book was fascinating.

Rating:
Summary: Just plain weird
Review: The Day I Went Missing is a disturbing look into one woman's quest for self understanding through psycho-therapy, and the disaaterous results . Jennifer Miller had worked as a writer on various TV shows, was achieveing some measure of success but, sensed something was lacking in her life. Paul, a friend, suggested she see his therapist David Cohen. This new doctor-patient pairing is the beginning of Miller's decent into a confusing and expensive world of the weirdest therapy (and scam) encountered. There are numerous times when a red warning flags went up as I read this book, and I had a hard time understanding why this professional woman was so under the spell of Cohen. I was also very disturbed by the constant parent bashing on the part of the author, the unwillingness to move ahead and accept responsibility for her own emotional well being. It took guts to write this book, to lay bare the enormous deception Miller underwent. But it is very disturbing that the author seems to be more forgiving and even nostalgic for the manipulative and destructive influence of Cohen, even after seeing the full face of his deception.

Rating:
Summary: Very bizarre
Review: The truth is that at one point or another we have ALL been "swindled", financially or emotionally (or both). As true as that is, another truth is that the vast majority of us keep quiet about the details of such swindling. This is why I found this book shocking at the beginning. The author hides very little, and for someone who had so many issues, it did not make sense. I interpreted maybe as a way to "atone" for what had happened, for her share of the blame. In the meantime, I was totally engrossed with the book. I read it over a weekend; the writing style is quite easy, and you can pretty much zoom along. I felt almost like a voyeur, peeking into the intimacies of this woman, learning about something so private and that I definitively would have concealed.

Then it dawned on me, all of a sudden. She said how important money is for her. Well, what a better way to recoup the $100K lost to her therapist than to write her unbelievable tale?!?! It all made sense.

One thing that really turned me off had to do with her comments about Mark Brazill, her co-writer. He apparently had an anger management problem, and she was too scared of him. This is the same woman who used to tell people to shut up in the middle of a theater. Somehow it does not make sense. Why does she choose to criticize some people with first and last names, and leave others anonymous?

This book is a perfect example of how reality can be stranger than fiction. If she had written this for TV or the movies, she would have been laughed at.

So, I recommend it. It is entertaining, fast, and slightly sordid.

Rating:
Summary: Truth IS stranger than fiction.
Review: What held my interest in this book was that it was a true story. Had this been a fictional account, I wouldn't have liked the book nearly as well. It was just that bizarre. I would have said that it was too far-fetched.

I was facinated to witness how Jennifer's personality and mental state changed as the book progressed, and I felt she was really honest in her writing.